While we’re on the subject of the poor, hard-done-by so-called right in Australian journalism, here’s Akerman

While Albrechtsen’s whine was a hoot, Akerman’s tilt at those of us who supported and continue to support humanitarian treatment for David Hicks is just plain sickening.
He launches into his tirade against his favourite hobby horses with…

“The confessed alien unlawful enemy combatant David Hicks will be released from Adelaide’s Yatala prison before the New Year to a hero’s welcome from a misguided few.”

…while further in, he denounces his own over-stated and erroneous claims with…

“His US military defence lawyer Major Michael Mori won the accolades of the latte-lapping set for this portrayal of the South Australian and his assertions were unchallenged by the ABC on almost all of its current affairs.”

The terminology ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ was never an accepted description by anyone other than people like Akerman, Bush, Howard, et al and as for the epithet ‘alien’, Akerman lodges hoof in gob by acknowledging Hicks as a South Australian. Does this man, Akerman, have any thought at all for his own credibility, let alone that of his profession?
The rest of his rant is pure, bile-driven, vintage Akerman, full to the brim of irrational absolutes and blindly ignorant, deliberately so, of the real reasons behind the public campaign for Hicks’ release from the Cuban hell-hole he was imprisoned in without trial for 5 years. It’s acknowledged by all who think as I do that Hicks is far from the sharpest tool in the shed, however he is a human being. He deserves, despite what the pragmatists – as Akerman clearly categorises himself – would wish upon him, the most Australian of all Australian ethics, the fair go.
For Piers Akerman and many of the ‘sphere’s bloggers who exist on a diet of bitter herbs and sour wine, the five and a half years Hicks spent in a matchbox-sized cell, the physical and mental privations he suffered at the hands of a politically driven, so-called ally will never be enough. The rhetoric will never by grand enough, the damnation never complete enough. Our judicial system allows pedophiles back into society, yet misguided dills like Hicks, who by his own admission never harmed anyone and in law has never been proven to have harmed anyone, are never to be allowed a ‘pragmatic’ acceptance that time spent is time hopefully well utilised in the realisation of their own stupidity.
Just what did David Hicks do which was wrong? Anti-Mercenery laws in this country, at the time of his supposed offence, could not be brought to bear against Hicks, despite proposed retrospective changes by the then Attorney-General. Therefore, the man is innocent in the eyes of the law. He’s clearly an offensive dickhead in the mind of society, but society has no right to demand retribution for some transgression which never occurred, in law. These are the facts, which Akerman simply refuses to accept, blithely ignores and disingenuously fails to cover in his spittle-flecked outrage.
For myself, I wish David Hicks and his family all the very best for a future which is productive, peaceful and satisfying. What’s done is done and cannot be undone. He ought not, however, be held to account for the personal affront felt by a whinging minority. Piers Akerman, pull your boofhead out of your arse and smell the roses of the new Australia, instead of constantly eating your own shit.